How to Forgive Someone who Broke your Heart

One of the questions I often get asked is, ‘How do you forgive someone who broke your heart?’ Rather than giving some generic answer, I prefer to quote Mark Twain when he said,

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”

Scientific research tells us that negative emotions such as anger, resentment and blame can cause stress to build up in the body, weakening the body’s immune system, and increasing the risk of heart disease, chronic pain, and depression among many other debilitating conditions.

“Unforgiveness is one of the most destructive problems of our day, ruining our relationships, robbing us of our happiness, and even impact our physical health”, says Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization Release! on their website. Yet, the problem is that most people have never learned to forgive.

Can you really learn to forgive? Sure. Is it easy? Not at all. If it was, most people would have no problem with it. How long will it take you to learn? As with most practices, the sooner you start learning, the sooner you’ll be able to forgive anyone who’s broken your heart.

Doc Childre, founder of The Institute of HeartMath says, “Forgiving and releasing old hurts from your system is like taking a mental and emotional bath.” I think the point Doc is trying to make is that if most of us bathe our bodies on a regular basis, would it not make sense to also bathe our emotional system with the same regularity?

To forgive someone, you need to release your judgments, or interpretation of the events – even before you fully understand why things happened. The problem is that most people want to understand why someone ‘wronged’ them before they forgive. It’s a Catch-22 situation!

This is what can make forgiveness so challenging and why people so often fail. After a while, it seems easier to just live with is, and pretend to ‘forgive’, but never ‘forget’, as the old saying goes.

Or you may just want to try this simple, heart intelligent forgiveness exercise you can do today. It will help you take that ’emotional bath’.

How to Forgive Someone who Broke your Heart

Think of a person or situation you have resented and want to forgive.

Ask yourself, “Am I truly, sincerely, and genuinely willing to forgive them?” If the answer is ‘yes’, continue with this exercise. If your answer is ‘no’, it is best that you don’t continue. I believe there’s such a thing as, ‘premature forgiveness’. Every emotional wound needs time to heal! So just be honest, and gentle with yourself. When you’re ready to forgive you’ll know it, and you’ll feel it in your heart.

Next, focus on your Heart, and begin to send all of the thoughts and emotions that come up in your head about the person or situation – including: past associations, memories, anger, hurt, resentments, etc. – gently into the heart. As often as these thoughts or feelings pop up in your head again, simply send them to your heart, which is the clearinghouse for your emotions.

While you continue to breath in all the thoughts and emotions, try to feel and send heart energy, love, compassion and forgiveness to the person or situation with every exhalation.

Do this for about 5 minutes. When you’re done, take a moment to become aware if you feel any different than when you started. Ask yourself, ‘What has changed?’

Repeat this process every time you find yourself starting to get angry, or feeling hurt.

Every time you practice forgiveness, what you’re truly doing is practicing heart management, or simply, activating your heart’s power to release old resentments and hurts, change your perceptions and bring you to a greater understanding of the person or situation.

Forgiving others, for your own sake and your own happiness, is ultimately what forgiveness is really all about.

Feel free to leave your comments below.

Love.

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Thank you for this. I recently went through a terrible heartbreak and life has totally changed ever since. But I understand that I need to forgive especially if I want to move on. Thank you for this. 🙂

I realised years ago that everything that happened between me and an ex partner or lover had a purpose. The lesson might have been tough but I had to go through it in order to become the person I am today. I now thank those people for being teachers and I make sure that I understand the lessons. The second thing to remember is that we quite possible also broke someone else’s heart. Do we want that person to hate us for ever and to not forgive us? Probably not. At the time we thought we had very good reasons for doing what we did. So we need to look at our own pain in the same way.

It took 37 years for me to receive my first heartbreak, I never let my heart go fully before that. I’m trying to take the positive out of the situation especially that at least I know how its supposed to feel to love another person with every ounce of your heart. When it is no longer reciprocated; there are feelings of resentment when you see the other person is able to walk away and move on with ease. I do want to forgive her because I believe it is not who she truly is since I knew her for years before we ever were together, she has her own emotional situations she is dealing with. The experience did give me the wake up call I needed to put my own goals into the forefront; I will be trying the exercises you listed when I am ready to forgive. Thank You very much for the article; it was exactly what I needed to read.

Thank you for this article. I am currently in a state of confusion and turned upside down.
I am not ready to forgive yet. But when I feel ready I thank you for the guidelines. I am trying to let go of my hate that I have. It is not easy.

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ABOUT GABRIEL

Gabriel Gonsalves is a coach, writer, entrepreneur, artist and an avid explorer of “The Path of the Heart”. He is a leading expert in Heart Intelligence Coaching, a path to personal development that is heart centered, integral, results oriented, and deeply transformational. [Read more]

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